Carbon capture risks

Calgary Herald Gillian McEachern Re: “Carbon capture concerns,” Editorial, Jan. 20 We agree that governments need to get it right on the environmental side with carbon capture and storage. It would be a dangerous and a false climate fix to pump carbon pollution underground, only to have it bubble back up into the atmosphere. But, even if it works, CCS is no silver bullet to deal with the environmental impacts of oilsands production. Given plans to rapidly expand oilsands, emissions would continue to rise and blow the federal government’s carbon budget, even with the industry’s most optimistic projections for CCS. Instead of pumping billions of taxpayer dollars into a technology that is untested, and won’t solve the problem even if it works, Canadian governments should instead be investing in creating new jobs in the transition to a low-carbon economy. Gillian McEachern is climate and energy program director with Environmental Defence.